When you become a parent, your entire world changes. Or maybe I should say, shifts. Gone are the days you can be totally engrossed in only yourself. As a parent, you must focus on an entirely new being in your life, your child. But what happens to the child if the parent is unable to do that? It depends on many different factors.

When I was an inpatient in a psychiatric hospital some thirty years ago, I developed an unbelievably strong transference with my psychiatrist. He became my entire world and I wanted nothing more than to be able to climb inside his skin and live next to his heart forever. When he told me one day that he was leaving for a two week vacation, I felt like my entire world was coming to an end. I didn’t know what to do! I went into full-blown panic mode. My anxiety skyrocketed.

For most of the so-called “normal”, the fear of abandonment doesn’t really play much of a part in our day to day lives but for people with BPD, this fear can be pathological and wreak havoc on every relationship they have. This fear is deeply rooted in our past and is carried into our future which contaminates almost every new relationship upon which we embark.

When I was learning DBT one of the most curious skills I learned was something called Opposite Action. This skill teaches that if, for example, you wake up feeling depressed and want nothing more than to stay in bed and just hibernate that you should do the opposite which is to get up, take a shower and have some breakfast. Why?

A friend once commented to me that I lived my life from “crisis to crisis”. I was taken aback by this because I did not understand the statement and I also did not see it. But after my husband died, I began to take a very serious look at my life. I actually say that it was my husband’s death which propelled me on my road to recovery. If he walked into the house today, he would not recognize me because I have become a totally different person.